This invention relates to a sealing device for a high pressure steamer which is used for processing textile products under a high pressure and more particularly to a sealing device to be disposed at the textile product inlet or outlet port of the high pressure steamer.
The present inventors have conducted research for a high pressure steamer to be used for processing a cloth material at a high temperature and under high pressure and also for sealing devices that permit guiding a cloth material into or out of such high pressure steamers, while maintaining the high temperature and high pressure inside the steamer. As a result of such research, the inventors have hitherto filed many patent applications for such high pressure steamers and such sealing devices. One of such previous patent applications is a sealing device, wherein a sealing effect is ensured by the provision of a pressure reducing chamber between the cloth material inlet or outlet port of a steamer drum body and a roll sealing arrangement comprising a combination of rubber seal rolls and metal seal rolls. In such a sealing arrangement, however, the steam inside the steamer comes into the pressure reducing chamber. The heat of the steam, then, causes the surface temperature of the rubber rolls employed in the roll seal arrangement to increase to such an extent that the rubber seal rolls tend to deteriorate and come to readily allow dyes to stick to their surfaces or they come to swell in the middle. The sealing effect has been lowered by such deterioration and that has presented a problem with such a sealing device.